Party Competition under the Single Non-transferable Vote System

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  • 中選挙区制と政党間競争
  • チュウ センキョクセイ ト セイトウ カン キョウソウ

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<p>The single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system has been widely adopted in the post-war Japan from the national elections to the local ones. Some studies argued that the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) kept its majority in the House of Representatives because of this unique electoral system during most of the entire period from its foundation in 1955 to its break-up in 1993. Other studies pointed out that the SNTV is disadvantageous to large parties and analyzed whether the LDP was able to overcome the difficulty in the electoral strategy for running candidates given its vote share in a district. However, these studies overlooked an important perspective that vote share itself is affected by the electoral system. I analyze how party vote shares were affected by the SNTV and how they were reflected in the number of legislative seats won. I show that the number of seats the LDP lost due to the SNTV was only half of what its competitor, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), did. These results imply that the SNTV favored the LDP as a result of the big disadvantage for the second largest party, the JSP.</p>

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